I decided to take of the grips on my hybrid with flat handlebars, b/c they were rotating and would get sticky when my hands got sweaty. None of the grips I found I really liked, or they were too expensive. Can I put cork bar tape on flat handlebars or am I crazy? Also I have L-shaped bar ends, can I put tape on those?

It's your bike. You can put whatever you want on there that feels good to you. In my early years I would put baseball bat grip on my tennis racquets for example. That's probably more ridiculous that your question.

If you put bar tape on your bars and the bar ends, you'll need more tape than what they would supply with the bartape. For a mountain bike, I suggest running either some very thin double-sided tape, or electrical tape sticky-side up under the bar tape to keep it in place. Go to the Park Tool website for other tips on wrapping bars.

why not? I have Scott AT-2 bars on my mountain bike and udes tape on the 'barends' on those, I jst put a set of similar bars on my Grizzly and did the same thing. sorry about the tape being 'repaired' in the pic but they 'style' I like is hard to find.

I actually see it quite often on bars with integrated bar ends. If you use self-adhesive bar tape, I don't see why you should have to run any other kind of tape underneath it.

I've used:

tennis racquet grip tape on my lacross sticks
handlebar tape on MTB flatbars with integrated bar ends
leftover handlebar tape on tennis racquet grips (handlebar tape was leftover from the above job. road drop bars have a lot more length than even moustache-style bars)
These (https://www.universalcycles.com/shopp...s.php?id=23907) on non-integrated bar ends

Have you considered lock-on MTB grips? Ergon makes some sweet ones.

I'm gonna say handlebar tape on a flat bar isn't the greatest idea. I've had no end of trouble doing it. Maybe there is some secret I've missed, but it only takes a few months of use for the edges to start curling up on me, and the whole thing to slowly start coming undone. I've done it, and it stays put with copious use of shellac, but I can't help but wonder, are there better ways?

as others have said, you can put whatever you want on your bars.

I don't see a single reason why this won't work.

Fuzz2050, in your case the edges may be getting torn due to the angle that results from how it's wound onto the bars. On an MTB bar the most frequent direction of hand pressure is going to be outward on the top surface. To get the best angle to avoid this you want to wind the tape on so that the edges on the top side are angled inward and forward. And the tape needs to be wound on from the ends or bar ends. Is this how you did your tape?

I have the same on both of my bikes - these bars rock, and wrapping them is a must.

so which way sould I wrap mine? Starting at the end of the handlebars/bar ends towards the stem or vice versa?

I had tape on my flat bar once and liked it a lot. I'm thinking about doing it again (also on the bar ends) but I need to replace my shifters first. I don't remember how I wrapped it though. I'm sure whatever I did wasn't the right way back then

Adam

Yesh you can



I also used tape when I had an Origin8 Space Bar on the same bike. For the current configuration, I wrapped the whole bar with one layer of black tape, then started at the outer ends of the flat bar, wound the yellow tape toward the middle, then back out all the way to the tips of the extensions, resulting in two tape thicknesses on the extensions and three on the flat part. Nice & cushy.

I have used cork bar tape on my flat-bar bike for many years without problems. It is a rather old tradition to use (cork) tape on flat bars, gull wing bars, or mustache bars on bicycles.
Here is what I have done: I started with wrapping a used cut up inner tube around the handlebar and tape it down. I am not quite sure if there is an actual dampening effect (my original goal), but it probably works as a anti-slip layer and makes the handle bar a little thicker. Wrap the bar tape tight around the handlebar, and observe that it is wrapped in the correct direction on each side, so that the natural forward pushing hand pressure tightens the bar tape instead of loosening it.
Apply a liberal amount of strong quality tape (Gaffer tape?) on both ends, the supplied tape is not enough. While you can use bar end plugs just like on drop bars to avoid using tape at the end of the handlebar, my experience says that the ends of flat bars gets banged up much more frequently which tend to unwind the bar tape.

The bar ends get wrapped separately, again take notice of the direction and use plenty of tape to secure the ends. My bar end wraps have been exchanged once because of wear and tear, but on the handlebar the tape is perhaps 3 years old and shows no sign of needing an exchange anytime soon. It may look unconventional with cork tape on bar ends but functionality and feel is very good.

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Regards

thank you for the photo. i asked a question regarding bar end tape and have found this thread. how i imagined doing this was a waste of time until i came across your advice. this is what i was looking for. so thanks!

The edge curl is probably down to wrap direction.


To prevent bar tape from coming undone the two neatest tricks I've seen are shrink tube or self-fusing silicone tape.

go ahead
... my oldest bike uses strips cut from old bicycle tire as grip tape
https://flic.kr/p/6HLR9q